by Rob Sinclair
No, of course not, Ryker realised as he felt a stabbing pain in his back. The pops – not from rifles, but modified dart guns.
As Vasquez’s smile grew, Ryker collapsed.
4
Mandeville, Louisiana
Douglas Ashford shut down the grumbling engine of his Lincoln Navigator and looked up at his lavish home, that he and his wife, Nicole, had bought five years earlier. Having purchased the house in a forced foreclosure, Ashford had spent three years fully renovating the vast property to its former glory. Built in the late 1800s, the home had the traditional French Creole features seen throughout the state; white painted timber, broad spreading roofline, a gallery roof supported by light wooden colonnettes, multiple French doors all surrounded by green shutters. Ashford loved the house. He loved the history of it and of the State that he called home. But he wasn’t feeling it much today.
Five years. William and Isabelle had been ten and seven back then. So much had changed in that time. Not just with the house, but their lives. Ashford wasn’t sure all the change was for the better, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t keep fighting for him and his family to come out on top. He was a confident – many would say arrogant – man, used to getting what he wanted. That mindset, together with a lot of hard work, had seen him achieve great personal gain, though it hadn’t come without troubles, which at times had put a strain on his marriage.
He stepped from the car into the humid air, and took slow and deliberate steps toward the front door of the family home. He wanted nothing more than to slump down onto a sofa in the air-conditioned living room and watch TV until he fell asleep in the small hours. Yet his mind was too busy – the issues he was dealing with were growing too big, too dangerous – and he knew there was little chance he was going to relax.
No sooner had Ashford opened the front door, than his wife Nicole came through from the kitchen into the galleried hallway to greet him. She wore a floral dress that clung to her body, though the extra weight around her hips meant it didn’t fit quite as well as it had when she’d first bought it. She still looked great to Ashford though, and the fact her died blonde hair was freshly shaped and her face was made up – showing off her wide white-toothed smile and deep blue eyes – suggested she’d made an effort.
‘My favourite Congressman,’ Nicole purred.
Ashford smiled. ‘What? Where?’ he asked, turning round.
‘Very funny,’ Nicole said. ‘But you’re late.’
‘Late for what?’
‘You were supposed to pick Izzy up? From Sophie’s house?’
‘Damn it. Honey, I’m sorry.’
He’d genuinely forgotten, but wasn’t about to explain to his wife what he’d been doing for the last few hours that was more important. He was sure she wouldn’t want to hear about the fifty thousand dollars he’d been forced to hand over to a man from the New Orleans Regional Planning Commission in order to keep the failing Alpha One office development in the heart of the city – of which he was supposed to be a silent partner – ticking over.
Sometimes such payments were the only way to get things done, and Ashford was never a man to shy away from doing whatever was needed. After all, it was this way of business that had amassed him his fortune. Now that he was an elected official though, the amounts and the frequency of gratuitous kickbacks seemed to be greater than ever.
Perhaps it was time he re-asserted his authority in a more conventional manner.
‘It’s no big deal,’ Nicole said. ‘I was home early with Will anyway. Gave me some pampering time before I needed to get Izzy.’
That explained why she was looking so good.
‘Will finished early?’ he asked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He cut practice.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘Why don’t you go ask him. He’s upstairs. Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes.’
Ashford looked at his watch and sighed. ‘To be honest, I was hoping for a run before eating. I could do with clearing my head.’
The look Nicole gave him told him exactly what she thought about that.
‘And why do you think Will cut practice?’ she asked. ‘He's trying to get your attention. He needs his dad. Where do you think this will end if you just keep ignoring him?’
‘I’m not ignoring him.’
‘It’s not me you need to convince.’
Ashford hung his head. He didn't want to get into this again.
‘I’ll talk to him later. I promise.’
‘You really want to go running out there? It’s humid as hell. I think a storm’s coming.’
What a metaphor. A storm was coming all right.
‘I’ll be back for food. We’ll all sit down together.’ Ashford moved up to his now scowling wife and put his hands around her waist. She resisted, but only a little. ‘Then how about later I run us both a bath.’
‘You’re gonna have to do more than run me a bath to get me out of this dress.’
Ashford smiled and Nicole’s hard look wavered. He planted a lingering kiss on her lips. She smelled and tasted of citrus – from her lip gloss, perfume or some lotion, he wasn’t sure, but it was good. He thought about picking her up and carrying her straight up to the bedroom.
But no, he did need to get out.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said before kissing her again.
Five minutes later, Ashford was jogging around the Grasslands estate, a near four hundred home gated community where the Ashfords lived. Their house was one of about a dozen original colonial-era properties whose vast acreage had been acquired in the 1990s to form the sprawling executive housing complex that now came complete with golf course, swimming pool, fitness centre, tennis courts, woodlands, miles of walking paths, and an extensive frontage along Lake Pontchartrain.
Within half a mile of beginning his run, sweat was pouring down Ashford’s face, making his eyes sting, and his running vest was soaked through and clinging to his torso. Although Ashford still felt he was in good shape for forty-nine – he tried to run or go to the gym three times a week, and was pleased if he managed two given his demanding work schedule – he was struggling with the conditions, his face on fire like it was a beacon, his lungs heaving. He pounded on anyway. He badly needed the respite.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t Ashford’s work that initially filled his head as he jogged along, but his relationship with his son. He’d always wanted to be a good father. To be there for his kids. More than anything he’d always wanted to be different to his own hard-edge father who was little more than an oversized bully to his children. As hard-nosed and unforgiving as Ashford had become in work life, he still tried his best to keep level and fair with Will and Izzy. They were his future. Though, whether his approach with them was for the better or the worse, he wasn’t always sure, and it was obvious he was spending too little time with them.
Ashford clenched his fists as he ran along, angered with himself more than anything. His no-nonsense approach to life had catapulted him onto the political stage so successfully over the last few years. His attitude had been the same in the army too – he’d enlisted when he was eighteen, as much to get away from his dad as anything else. There Ashford had learned to lead, how to be taken seriously by others. Maybe Will needed the same. The army. Some real discipline.
Or was that just a cop out? Expecting someone else to sort out his kid because Ashford was too tied up with his own shit to do it himself?
Yeah, about that shit. Ashford had gone all of five minutes without thinking about the mess that was brewing south of the border. He’d hoped the distraction of home would help to ease the tension bubbling in his head. Fat chance.
Just like that, all thoughts of home life seemed to disappear.
Ashford was two miles into his run before his tumbling thoughts were distracted when he spotted another jogger coming his way. There were around seven hundred residents on the estate so it wasn’t unusual to see other people out and about, but there was som
ething about this woman. The fact she was young, pretty and dressed in tight-fitting lycra shorts and a minuscule skin-tight running top was undoubtedly one reason he was staring. But it wasn’t just that. It was her Hispanic features. With everything that was sloshing through Ashford’s mind about Mexico, she immediately caught his attention.
As she closed in, the woman looked up and gave the slightest of smiles. Ashford tensed, he wasn’t sure why. He smiled back but then, as they crossed paths, the woman stumbled – a pothole maybe? – and nudged into Ashford’s side. He wobbled forward and turned his head as he slowed, intending only to offer a cursory apology. The woman had already stopped and was facing him. Ashford stopped running too.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the woman said. Her Mexican accent was thick. ‘Here, I think you dropped this.’
Ashford frowned as the woman bent down and picked up a piece of paper from the ground.
‘What? No, I–’
She held the paper out to him. Ashford took it. He unfolded it, looked down at the printed words and felt his already racing heart beat even faster.
Most esteemed Congressman, we know about Mexico. Tread carefully.
Ashford stared at the note, at first aghast, then consumed with rage. He was not the type of man to take an idle threat lying down. He was a damn Congressman. Not just rich but powerful too. In this state he could do whatever the hell he wanted. They – whoever they were – wanted to send him a message? He would send one right back.
He looked up to see the woman already fifteen yards ahead, turning a corner into woodland. Ashford grunted as he set off at a pace, the piece of paper screwed up in his clenched fist.
He hurtled forward, around the corner, red mist descending in front of his eyes, well prepared to throttle that bitch to find out who she was and who had sent her. He might even enjoy doing it, maybe that was the release he was looking for...
But there would be no such confrontation this time. Whoever she was working for, it was already too late.
The woman was gone.
5
Mexico City, Mexico
They didn’t take Ryker far. Just a few miles from where he’d been arrested in Ciudad Neza to the sprawling Santa Martha Acatitla prison in the Mexico city suburb of Itzapalapa.
Arrested? Had he been arrested? Ryker wasn’t sure. No one had said so. No one had read him his rights. There was no police station, no questioning, no charges put before him. He’d woken from unconsciousness in the back of an armoured truck and was hauled straight out of there and into the jail.
Inside, they subjected him to a brief booking in process during which Ryker was not allowed to speak, and then stripped him of his clothes and his few possessions, and provided him with the prison standard off-white trousers and t-shirt. After that he was moved directly into the general prison population.
Although groggy from the tranquilliser still moving through his veins, Ryker’s mind was burning with thoughts as he was shepherded down the corridor toward a cell. The PF leader – Comisario Vasquez – had shot an unarmed civilian in the face in broad daylight in front of about a dozen other police officers. Ryker knew the PF were brutal in their war on drugs – they had to be, and in many cases it was the only way to match the ferocity and extreme violence of the powerful cartels. Ryker also knew though that the PF were far from incorruptible. In the end, money always talked. The most likely explanation for Jiménez’s execution was that Vasquez was dirty.
Yet that still didn’t explain why they wanted Ryker, or even how the PF had known about him in the first place.
Ryker’s hands remained cuffed behind his back as he was guided through the cell block. A uniformed prison guard walked either side of him. One held Ryker’s wrist firmly, twisting it just enough to show who was in charge. The other guard gripped a metal baton that he slapped in the palm of his hand with each step that he took.
To Ryker’s right a wall – three storeys tall with intermittent barred windows – rose up to a steel gabled roof. The wall’s once white paint was peeling profusely, its render missing large chunks that exposed the grey building blocks underneath. To Ryker’s left were three stacked rows of cells, each just a few feet wide and deep, solid walls on three sides with thick steel bars looking out to the corridor.
A multitude of faces were pressed up against the black bars: old, young, fat, thin, pockmarked, scarred, fresh-faced – six men, ten, maybe as many as fifteen crammed into each tiny cubicle. Some were smiling, mocking, some were angry and snarling. Some were spaced out like no life lay within.
Nonetheless, most seemed to be enjoying the moment of welcoming the new arrival. A distraction from the everyday tediousness of life on the inside. Many were calling out, shouting, heckling Ryker. El gringo. El Americano. They were wrong on that one, but they could be forgiven. Ryker was a white face and more often than not in this part of the world that meant the US rather than England. Nevertheless, both terms flung at Ryker were spoken – or spat – with obvious distaste.
Ryker kept his head straight, his eyes focused in front. He saw a head bob forward within one of the cells. He heard the sound as the man gobbed a mouthful of spit. The ball of phlegm hit Ryker on the shoulder. Ryker didn’t flinch. He felt the guard shove him in the back – a closed fist or his baton perhaps. An indication: Don’t react. Or else.
Ryker held his nerve, the first three times at least. But when the fourth mouthful hit him in the cheek and the corner of his mouth, he stopped walking, ignoring the guard who pulled on his wrist straight away. Ryker glared over to the man who’d spat at him. The man – acne-scarred face – was giving a twisted smile that revealed several missing teeth in a mouth of yellow and black.
The baton-wielding guard stepped in front of Ryker, catching his eye. The guard shook his head then thrust his baton into Ryker’s side. The painful jab made Ryker wince, and did the trick of getting him moving again.
As they passed the next cell, however, it wasn’t Ryker but the guards who had to hold in their anger. Ryker saw an arm arcing toward him. He turned just as a man in the cell unleashed a cupful of piss from between the bars. The stinking yellow liquid whipped through the air and splashed into the guard on Ryker’s left, a small part of it spraying onto Ryker’s t-shirt and trousers.
There was a moment’s silence in the echoey chamber.
The two guards let go of Ryker. The urine-covered guard, growling in anger, took a step toward the cell and slammed his baton onto the bars, just as the men inside snatched away their fingers. The guard’s friend had to reach out and grab hold of his colleague to pull him away and there was a brief exchange between the two as the first guard fought to calm himself.
Ryker stared on. First at the guards. Then at the men in the offending cell. The piss thrower was a wiry young man in his twenties, Ryker guessed. He was giggling stupidly. Several other men in the cell looked similarly amused. One man didn’t. He was standing tall at the front of the cell, his thick arms folded across his broad chest. His shaved head was covered in swirls of black ink that sunk into the neck of his white wife-beater. A long scar ran along his face from his forehead, across his eye, down his cheek. He said nothing, but the brief standoff told Ryker a lot about him.
The dripping wet guard turned round and angrily swept his baton toward Ryker, the thick shaft clattering into Ryker’s lower back and sending him reeling forward. Ryker accepted the punishment without a murmur. The guard wanted to vent his anger and Ryker was the scapegoat. Whatever.
Just like that the shouts and the heckles and the spitting started again, until Ryker’s long walk of shame finally came to an end when he reached the last cell on the corridor. Behind this cell door was just one man, standing in wait. Short, maybe five feet six or seven, he looked to be in his sixties and had wispy white hair that was a stark contrast to the heavily weathered and wrinkly skin on his face.
The dry guard stepped forward and unlocked the cell door with a thick metal key. The white-haired man stepped back before the gu
ard opened the door. The guard released Ryker’s cuffs then shoved him hard in the back, sending him tumbling into the cramped space. As Ryker regained his composure, he heard the door slam shut behind him and the key turn in the lock. He looked across into the eyes of the white-haired man.
‘Bienvenido a Mexico, gringo,’ the man said in Spanish. Welcome to Mexico. ‘Or should I say,’ he carried on in heavily accented English, ‘welcome to hell.’
6
Ryker sat down on one of four metal bunks in the cell, on top of a thin sheet. The man sat opposite. Ryker put a hand up to his throbbing head. Throbbing with thoughts, that is. Whatever his reason for being in jail, at that moment he was thinking more about next steps than why. Both what they would do next – whoever it was that wanted him locked up – but also what he would do to get out.
‘Somebody likes you,’ the white-haired man said.
‘What?’ Ryker responded, looking up. It took his brain a second to decipher the words, the man’s accent was that strong.
‘They put you in here, with me. Somebody must like you.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You would rather be out there, with them?’
By them, Ryker guessed the man was referring to the other inmates who were all crammed several men to a cell.
‘What’s the difference?’ Ryker asked.
‘A lot. You want to be ten men in a cell? Every one of them hating Americans.’
‘I’m not American.’
‘No?’
‘English.’
‘Ah, Inglés!’ the man beamed. ‘English I like.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘Queen Elizabeth. The Beatles. James Bond.’
Ryker raised an eyebrow.
‘License to kill,’ the man said drawing his hand into the shape of a gun and taking an imaginary shot at Ryker. ‘You James Bond?’